


In the Library

by flashforeward



Category: Eerie Indiana
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, sentient library
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 13:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4878868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashforeward/pseuds/flashforeward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something amiss at the Eerie library, and our intrepid heroes are determined to save it. Mostly because Simon insists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Library

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the prompt "The Eerie Public Library" at the [Better Weird Than Dead](http://eerie-indiana.livejournal.com/67017.html) Eerie Ficathon

When the stacks shifted, Simon was on his way from the section on hauntings to the section on mythological creatures. The translucent horse that had taken up residence in the second floor bathroom of the Holmes house was very probably a ghost, but it's tendency to shout out battle plans in a robotic voice had led Simon to conclude that it was probably also something more, which meant research.

 

Which meant the library.

 

Dash had sworn off the building altogether after finding himself trapped in the torture section, which for some reason kept looping back on itself and depositing him in the exact same location over and over and over. He was trying to convince Marshall and Simon to do the same, and renewed his campaign when Simon stopped at Marshall's house to let them know where he was going.

 

"It's trying to kill us," Dash had said, sounding gruff and argumentative rather than in any way worried for Simon's safety. Par for the course.

 

"I think it's only trying to kill _you_ ," was Marshall's reply.

 

They had started bickering then and Simon had left them to it. He had more important things to worry about right now than the two of them not getting along. Like a militant ghost horse making using the toilet an awkward and uncomfortable experience. And convincing Harley, who on his ninth birthday had  somehow  discovered the wonders of Douglas Adams, that the appearance of said horse did not mean there was also an Electric Monk wandering the streets of Eerie, likely with a shotgun and a  desperate need to believe in something.

 

Now, however, standing in a never ending True Crime section, Simon wondered if maybe Dash had a point. Not that the library was malicious or trying to kill them or anything, but it was clearly doing this all on purpose. Perhaps, Simon concluded, the library was trying to tell them something.

 

"Hello?" Simon tried, his voice hoarse and quiet from lack of use. "Is someone there?"

 

There was a thud as a book fell from the shelf. Simon inched forward and peered down at the cover. The title, written in blood red on a black background, sent a shiver down his spine:  Cry for Help . 

 

He swallowed and spoke again, louder this time. "Where are you?" he asked. " _ Who _ are you?"

 

It was quiet for a moment, then a wind kicked up from nowhere and the shelves began to shake and books tumbled down, thudding to the floor around Simon, who had ducked down and was covering his head with his arms, waiting it out. When it all quieted back down, he looked up into a strange black hole that had appeared in the aisle. It seemed to be moving, almost gesturing Simon towards it with an odd glow. Like stars in the night slowly pulling up further into the sky, beckoning for the people below to join them. Simon took an unsteady step forward, careful not to trod on the books that now  littered the floor, his gaze fixed on the portal before him. It wanted him to go through, he could feel it, and the longer he stared at it the more he wanted to comply.

 

Just as Simon reached it, his foot about to come down inside the portal, a familiar voice behind him called out his name. He glanced behind him, saw Mars leading Dash around the corner, and he almost hesitated.

 

Except it was too late. The portal had him and a moment later Marshall and Dash and the library were all gone, replaced by an inky blue-black that could have been space except Simon could breath and his blood wasn't boiling out of his body.

 

_Morbid_ , he thought,  _where did that come from?_

 

"Me."

 

The voice was small and quiet, more in Simon's head than a sound from outside him, but it still made him jump, which was an odd sensation in a place that seemed to have  neither up nor down. The voice giggled.

 

"Are you afraid?"

 

"Um, a little," Simon answered, being honest because clearly whoever this was could read his mind anyway. "Who are you?" he asked. Then, after a moment peering into the  dark and seeing only  more of the same , " _Where_ are you?"

 

"I am all around you," said the voice, "I am knowledge and wisdom. I am word and picture. I am imagination and dreaming." A pause, a sigh, then, "I am the Eerie Public Library."

 

Simon thought for a moment, unsure how best to proceed. "Were you the one who asked for help?" he finally said, not sure how that could be the case but even less sure how it couldn't.

 

"I am."

 

The reply boomed out and Simon stepped back, though there was nowhere to go. "Um. What's wrong?" he asked, frantically searching for an exit or for something to stay away from, at least. His heart pounded in his chest and his palms were sweaty and he kind of wished he'd listened to Dash, honestly.

 

The next time it spoke, the voice was quieter, calmer. "I am sorry, I forget you creatures are so small. I will try to control my anger." A gentle wind kicked up, the smell of chocolate cakes and Syndi's perfume wafted over Simon and he pulled in a few deep breaths, feeling himself calm down more with each one.

 

As his terror dissipated, he gave his head a brisk nod and cleared his throat. "Okay," he said, "why do you need help?" It was just another part of Eerie weirdness, another case, so what if he didn't have Mars or Dash to back him up? He was born for this.

 

"I am trapped. I am cut off from parts of myself and it is slowly killing me."

 

"How?" Simon asked. Information, that was always the key, that was why he'd been in the library in the first place.

 

"I do not know, I know only that I cannot touch parts of my being and more and more are cut off from me everyday and it _hurts_."

 

The voice grew more frantic with every word and Simon wished there was some physical manifestation he could reach out and touch and comfort in some way, useless as it would be. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than a plastic version of Marshall's were-unicorn form appeared before him. He knelt down and lifted it from where it stood, holding it gently in his hands and stroking it's rainbow mane.

 

"What can I do to help?" he asked.

 

"I do not know," the voice said in a soft voice. It sounded sleepy, so Simon stopped stroking the unicorn's mane. The voice continued, sounding slightly more awake now. "I do not know what is causing this and thus cannot tell you how to help."

 

"Can you tell me what sections you can't reach?" Simon asked. "Maybe I could use that information to figure it out."

 

The voice was quiet for a long while and Simon worried it had fallen asleep - could libraries fall asleep? Is that what they did after closing? - when it finally spoke again. "Yes, I think I can do that," it said. "And you will help me?"

 

"My friends and I," Simon said, "we'll do whatever we can."

 

"I thank you, little one. I thank you."

 

Simon set the unicorn down and it disappeared. "Okay," he said, pulling his notebook from his backpack and preparing to write. "What sections can't you access?"

 

*

 

The list, jotted down quickly in Simon's already messy hand, stared up at them from the notebook laid out atop the mess off books in front of them. "Okay," Simon said, "I say we start here," he pointed to _Lovecraft._ "It's the most disconcerting."

 

"I'd be more worried about this," Dash said, pointing to _Demonic Entities_. "I mean, one's fiction and one's nonfiction, right?"

 

Simon shook his head. "Not necessarily, a lot of fantasy and science fiction is actually the truth, just disguised as fiction so the people who don't want you to know about it don't catch on."

 

Dash blinked and stared at Simon. "You have been spending entirely too much time with Teller," he said. "Hang with me sometime, you'll sound less like a conspiracy 101 textbook."

 

"There's no such thing as a conspiracy 101 textbook, Dash," Marshall said, exasperated.

 

"Not yet, but I'm sure you'll write it."

 

Marshall started to retort but Simon cut them both off with a quick shake of his head. "You can argue later, we have a library to save."

 

"Sorry, Simon," Marshall muttered. Dash didn't say anything. Par for the course.

 

"Okay, so we know someone is trying to access a lot of information on the supernatural without the library finding out," Simon said, tapping his pencil against his chin. "But why? What would the library do if it knew?"

 

The shelves around them shook and a book fell out, landing on top of the notebook. The title was The Long Fight.

 

"This is getting creepy," Dash said. He made to stand, but Simon grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. "What the hell, Shrimpenstein?"

 

"You're not bailing on this one," Simon said, pushing the book aside and once again looking down at the list he'd made. "Everything has to do with the supernatural and the occult, but it's especially to do with the darker aspects of those topics. Which means someone wants that information and doesn't want anyone else to know so they've cut the library off from those sections so that other people get turned around trying to find them and the library can't warn them."

  
"Does the library know who did this?" Marshall asked. Dash, who was still not entirely on board with the whole sentient library thing, made a derisive noise, but Mars and Simon ignored him, waiting for another book to fall.

 

They heard a thud, but it was from a different aisle.

 

Simon stood up, scooping his notebook under his arm and leading the other two - Mars practically dragging Dash with them - down a few rows to...the building and carpentry section? A book lay on the floor, its orange paperback cover shiny in the light so that the full title was obscured, Simon could only make out one word from where he stopped at the end of the row:  _ Chisel _ .

 

"Oh this just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?" Dash snapped. "What do you think about bailing now?"

 

Simon shook his head. "We have to stop him," he said. "Or at least save the library. We can worry about stopping him completely after that."

 

"In case you hadn't noticed," Dash said, pulling Simon around to face him, " _ we _ are three kids. Chisel is the mayor of this screwy place. What makes you think we  _ can  _ stop him?"

 

Simon grinned and Dash took a step back at the sight. Even Marshall looked shocked. Simon opened his arms, gesturing to the library as a whole. "Knowledge," he said. "We save the library from Chisel, we have all the knowledge in its stacks. And he has a pissed off now fully functional institution."

 

The others were silent for a moment, then Dash shook his head and spoke, " Kid , you're nuts," he said, clapping Simon on the shoulder. "I like it. Let's do this."

 

"How?" Marshall asked.

 

Simon chewed his lip for a moment, thinking. "Ariadne," he finally said. Then, at the blank looks Dash and Mars were giving him, he elaborated, "I mean, we use something to connect the sections to each other. Like Ariadne's string led Jason through the maze, we lead the library to its missing pieces."

 

"Okay, but who has string?" Marshall asked.

 

Silently, Simon turned his gaze to Dash, who was already digging around in his trench coat's pockets. "It's in here somewhere," he muttered. "Aha!" He pulled a tangled wad of yarn from an inside pocket of the coat. "Crap," he muttered. "We're going to have to untangle it, aren't we?" he asked.

 

"Cutting it kind of defeats the purpose," Simon said, though he sounded apologetic about it.

 

Dash sighed and sat down heavily on the floor. Simon and Marshall joined him and they each took a section of yarn and began to work.

 

*

 

An indeterminate amount of time, two black eyes, a rug burn, and one paper-cut later, the yarn was untangled and rolled into a neat ball (courtesy of Simon, who had taken over the untangling after the second fight had broken out, leaving Mars and Dash to work through their tension while he Got Things Done). They started at the biographies and slowly worked their way through every aisle and row they could get to, sometimes doubling back on accident when the librar y's  disconnected sections caused them to  enter a loop. Still, they managed to get everything they could reach connected with the string.

 

Getting to the unconnected bits was going to be trickier.

 

"We've been to them before, it just takes more work," Simon said, biting his lip again. The yarn ball was getting disconcertingly small and he was wondering if he should have Dash run out and buy another skein, except he wasn't sure Dash would be able to find them when he got back. Or that Dash would actually pay for the yarn. But of the three of them, Dash and Simon were the only two who knew how to figure out which skein of yarn had the most actual yarn in it, so he couldn't ask Marshall, and he himself refused to leave the library until they'd managed to put it back together.

 

"What are we going to do?" Marshall asked, breaking through Simon's thoughts. He hadn't realized how long he'd been thinking, but Marshall startling him gave him an idea.

 

"Marco Polo," he said.

 

"Come again?" Dash asked.

 

"You and Mars each go find a section," Simon said, "when you get there, call out Marco and I'll call out Polo to let you know I'm on my way. Keep calling out Marco until I arrive."

 

"What if we both get there at the same time?" Marshall asked, ever practical.

 

"You won't," Simon said, positive he was right on this.

 

He was.

 

Marshall got to the section on Demonic Entities first and after about a half hour of Marco Polo Simon eventually got there, too. He had to keep going back and trying again so he didn't use too much yarn. Shortly after he sent Marshall off to find his next section, Dash's voice rang out from the Lovecraft section and Simon was off again.

 

By the time they'd connected all of the missing sections, Simon was pretty sure it must be the middle of the night. He was exhausted and they barely had enough yarn to get the last section connected, but they  _ just _ made it and Simon felt triumphant and couldn't stop grinning as he looked at their fuzzy black handiwork.

 

"Did it work?" Marshall asked.

 

Simon shrugged. He had no idea, but he was glad he'd made the attempt anyway. "We should probably go, Mars," he said. "It's gotta be way past your curfew."

 

"Oh,  _ now  _ we can leave?" Dash asked. He rolled his eyes and stomped away, out the door and into the dark Eerie night. Simon caught Marshall's eye, shrugged, then followed.

 

Except outside wasn't quite as dark and peaceful as Simon had expected.

 

A police cruiser had pulled over to the side of the road and a deputy had Dash up against the wall of the library. Simon and Marshall froze, and Simon knew Marshall, too, was wondering if Chisel had somehow figured out what they were up to in there, what they'd been doing, how they'd been trying to thwart him.

 

Except then Marshall's parents were rushing towards them, reaching out for them.

 

"Uh, Mars," Simon said, "did you tell your parents where you were going?"

 

"Oops," was all Marshall got out before his parents pulled him into a tight hug, Mrs. Teller scrambling to get Simon into it, too.

 

By the time they all got back to the Teller's house - minus Dash, who had disappeared between the group hug and the lecture - they'd almost forgotten about the library.

 

*

 

The next morning, Simon stopped in, just to see .  He didn't find the yarn, it was all gone, and he managed to get to a couple of the sections they'd reconnected. It was looking promising. Then, as he was leaving, t he librarian called him over. "You have a book on hold," she said, smiling down at him. He handed her his card and waited patiently as she checked out  _ At the Mountains of Madness _ to him, not even commenting on the fact that it wasn't exactly appropriate literature for someone his age.

 

Simon left, the book safe in his backpack, a smile on his face as he walked down the street with a new bounce in his step.

 

It had worked.

 

They had saved the Eerie Library.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Marshall's unicorn form is from these two fics: 
> 
>  
> 
> [The Dance Contest](http://eerie-indiana.livejournal.com/67247.html)  
> [Day of the Marsicorns](http://eerie-indiana.livejournal.com/83805.html)


End file.
